Jolyon Maugham lets slip

FGS it’s just a fox. Not a child. Tweeting what he did was a dick move, and I entirely disagree with him on the trans issue, but as a silk myself I have a lot of respect for JM. Tax silks are bloody bright and can coin it (£700 per hour and upwards). He chooses Instead to spend 75% of his time not earning mega dollar on tax cases but bringing cases such as that in which the Supreme Court ruled that Johnson unlawfully prorogued Parliament. That was important, and thoroughly laudable. A twatty tweet about an urban fox is not, but doesn’t diminish the good work he has done.

you have to wonder whether he’s quite the ticket. Oh yes.

When we lived in London, we saw foxes pretty often. One day I heard growling outside our door and saw that the cat was facing down an intruder. I froze for a second, then shouted to scare the fox away. All the time I felt sure that the cat’s time had come.

Luckily the cat’s spirited self defense and my shouting combined to scare the fox away. (May the cat Rest In Peace; she died of natural causes about six years later.)

Nevertheless this happened shortly after a London baby was attacked in his cot by a fox, so I wondered afterward what I would have done had it been my then-2-year-old and not my cat attacked outside the kitchen door. I concluded that I would have grabbed the nearby frying pan and bludgeoned the animal, but probably vomited afterward, and the incident would have disturbed me forevermore thereafter.

I just can’t understand JM’s reaction to club a trapped animal, and then joke about it on Twitter...

Slightly off-topic, but I have to know:

How do you pronounce his name?

The poems on Twitter are killing me.

This sounds entirely made up to me. I find it completely impossible to believe that a fox can somehow become entangled in chicken wire. It just wouldn’t happen.

And yes, killing a fox like that would be the equivalent of beating a dog the size of a spaniel to death. Horrific.

Of course if he’s making up stories like this, you have to wonder whether he’s quite the ticket.

Goodness, I just saw on The Papers on Sky News that the Mail has this as its cover story in the morning.

I'd quite like to do a straw poll of how many people keep a baseball bat in the house. I most certainly don't.
I didn't even have a kimono in the house so I'd have no chance of defending any chickens.

The whole thing is bonkers and I agree, he has gone a bit odd over the last year or so.

I keep chickens. I've lost lots of chickens to foxes. If I found a fox tangled in wire or netting or whatever, there is no way I'd beat it to death with a baseball bat.
Just no. No.

Fair to say that while I think of foxes as dodgy big rats with bushy tails, I would have got properly dressed with wellies and big gloves on and taken a pair of long cutters to cut through the plastic netting. How difficult is it? Presumably his wife could’ve come out with the baseball bat to clout the fox if things had got nasty.

So it's confirmed that Jolyon's bat's hit.

(That was far too laboured for my liking; apologies!)

Wonder what he did with fox after beating it.

I do think there are many psychopaths at the top of their tree.

“Snakes in Suits” is a great read. Also helps to spot work psychopaths but then again, most of us don’t have trouble with that.

I really would not want a man who could do this as a friend, or even a colleague. If the fox was trapped in plastic netting or wire then he could have cut it or called out the RSPCA to help free the fox. Bludgeoning it with a bat, I mean he must have been covered in blood, it would be like killing a dog fgs, horrific. What is wrong with him ? Is he mentally ill ?

You would think after the earlier fox/kimono incident in November someone would have got him a kimono of his own for Christmas, wouldn't you?

I keep chickens. There are loads of foxes round here. One lives under the neighbour’s shed.

We’ve lost four chickens to foxes so far. Whose fault is that? Mine, because they weren’t secured properly and foxes are gonna fox. I’d never hurt one of them. I’ve caught one attacking my hens and it ran off as soon as it saw me. I don’t understand why anyone would beat a living creature to death like that.

Vortex it was trapped in chicken wire. He’s saying he couldn’t try to free it because it would be too dangerous. I think that means he was worried the fox would take a bite out of the kimono.

Couldn't he have shooed it away like everyone else does? Seems overly dramatic. What's his record on fox hunting? I'm expecting something wildly hypocritical.....

I get the impression he likes to emphasise the "wife's kimono" aspect because he thinks that makes it funny. Haha, look at me, wearing women's clothes, how ridiculous.

Yeah, I think clubbing a trapped animal to death is pretty bloody scary, and indicates a rather troubled individual. This isn't just snapping the neck of a mortally wounded and suffering bird, which still takes a strong stomach.
To kill something the size of a fox with a baseball bat requires significant physical force and determination. I wouldn't like to be alone in a dark alley with a man who thought it was a casual Boxing Day morning jape.

I do think it's a bit psychopathic to club a fox to death with a baseball bat - I can't imagine doing this, or any man I know doing this!

If we had this happen to us, I would have found a way to free the fox, or called the RSPCA. I did call the RSPCA for a fox on the side of the road once, it had been hit by a car, but was still alive and thrashing about. They came out to it.

I'm beyond at this - the fact that he did it, and the way he spoke about it online, having a laugh about it. I wrote on the other thread about him that I think he's losing it - I now think he's unhinged. Nasty piece of work.

The wife's kimono explains so much, albeit not about foxes.

How does he know it was a fox and not a fox that identified as a chicken?

twitter.com/nypost/status/1210220085991944193

It's gone global

This is psycopathic behaviour.

Do you think so? I can't quite decide. I agree most of us would shy away from bludgeoning a wild animal to death with a baseball bat, let alone boasting about it on Twitter. But I imagine in a lot of cultures it would be considered quite normal. Perhaps he thought it was kinder than letting it suffer (though I'm sceptical about this).

And most people have no qualms about eating meat, which is the same thing - the brutal killing of an animal - but at one remove. It's outsourcing the killing to someone else so is arguably no more morally acceptable.

This is psycopathic behaviour.

BbC’s take:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50919327